c02s01e06 -- Luck of the Draw the two converted 'Forged walk the team down a corridor that opens up into a workshop/torture chamber. 3 other warforged are there overseeing the 3 rangers hanging by their wrists from chains in the ceiling... 2 have their hearts torn out of their chests... the third was covered in sigils cut into his body. Nero and Frank pull rank on the 'forged while THX puts some healing to the one ranger with his heart in tact... stabilizing the "POW", THX puts the survivor on a workbench to rest properly. one heart is just fat missing, but the remaining heart is also covered in carved sigils and a big bite has been torn from the meat. Apparently the commanding officer is in the next room.. so the team sends all the forged upstairs with the 3 rangers while they get to know the current authority. a curtain of chains separate the two rooms... Nero pops a beartrap in the doorway as he pushes through the chains. Ouch. stuck in place with the other heroes behind, they get to watch an athasian.... shaman....? cackle with psychotic glee as he pushes a squishy heart bristled with docent crystals into a Really Big Mecha The mecha gets up to hurt the team. Nero dimsteps into the room to take on the athasian one on one as animated armor clunks their way to block frank and THX from getting through the door. So Nero vs Big Mecha and athasian shaman... it goes well. Nero keeps his distance, pot-shotting eldritch blasts at the shaman and mecha. Finally Frank finishes off the animated armors and barrels in to help finish off the athasian while THX prostelitizes at the big mecha to stay it's hand... confusion ensues but when the shaman drops, the mech's disposition changes immediately and runs out of the room through the torture pit back towards the exit... THX then Frank then Nero take turns following the huge creature lumbering through the facility, trying to squeeze down hallways and turns not intended to large or huge machinery...betweenthe sobbing, cries for help, and blubbering on about his missing body, the team figure out that the shaman figured out how to shove human souls into machinery. Yay. at least the shaman is dead.. and he left behind spell storing crystals! 5 of them. super useful. The team is on a roll, and the facility is mostly explored. There's a forge, and more workshop stuff... they find the two caravan's worth of blacksmith supplies, so that's 2 for 2. They are really cleaning up on this mission. Revisiting the room of statues, the team realize that there's some 60 statues in here and they are all Thrane soldiers of various ranks from 300 years ago... and then it all clicks together that this was a sort of POW internment camp -- obviously an undisclosed stronghold -- they petrify the prisoners to minimize risks and expenses... then if needed they "thaw" one out and torture; later repetrifying the POW. Last room past the statue storage hall has 'forged cleaning rock and wreckage... dumping it onto a teleportation circle that they got functioning, making for easy cleanup but they didn't really know where it went. bright idea-- the globe in the research library hs all sorts of lines t measure locatiojns on the surface... but Frank put his fist through where they needed to look. a few mendings later and they determine that the destination currently keyed into he machine is super close, west of their current location. That may be worth checking out after a rest. So.... here's what the team walks out with. -- 1 dead ranger, 1 live ranger, 1 ranger soul stuck in a very large warforged. -- 8 docents -- 6 on the athasian's work bench, 2 plugged into the upstairs fort -- 12 warforgeds in the facility -- report that 6 forged are mia from a recon mission heading east -- at least 2 buried mecha -- 5 necklaces of spell storing -- 3 petrify juice -- 1 pit trap athasian armor that has acid reisist -- 60 pow + means of thawing them -- 3 athasians petrified + 1 dead athasian shaman -- 1 cyre military installation -- including an active teleportation circle -- 2 stolen caravan's of black supplies 1st order of business is to finish bringing the blacksmith supplies to Cragwar for some favor 2nd order is to deliver the surviving ranger back to Cragwar along with 2 rtanger bodies for some additional favor... but no mention of the newborn warforged. they are hoping to maybe recover him somehow, but in the meantime, may as well get used to new machinery and play nice with the recovered 'forged. 3rd order is to clean up the 'forged facility. The team can't keep it secret from Cragwar authorities AND return the rangers to Cragwar... so the team needs to figure that out. 4th order-- restore the POW's and figure out what to do with them. 5th order - what to do with the decommissioned cyre warforged 6th order - there's still 6 'forged unaccounted for. This is a good list of stuff to sort out. The team returns the blacksmith supplies in exchange for a favor which they cash in to make use of the Temples' alchemy lab to produce enough stonecure for the 60 POW. they can produce 5 doses per week... that's 12 weeks of work unless they find more/better labs to replicate the green liquid... the party needs to figure that out, because they aren't going to be able to tie up the lab for 12 weeks on a single favor without tipping their hand towards what they are doing. The team finally gets some sleep, only to be tormented by demonic nightmares. Saving throws are made. Frank fails and has taunting dreams of his family being tortured to death by Spawn of Evil Nero passes his save and amidst the taunts from a swarm of imps, he learns the name of his demonic Patron-- kazzarak THX rolls a natural 20 and not only slaps away the taunts of the imps, but has lucid experience, following the cowering critters back to their boss's lair, and has a legal debate with an Enforcer-- making it perfectly clear that if they want to harrass Nero, they have to deal wtih THX first. Here's where it gets fun. In defeating the messenger demon in the warforged prison, the team earned "rewards". Since THX and Nero passed their saving throw during their dream visions, they each got to draw a card from the Deck of Many Things. Frank failed his save, so no card was offered (sorry) THX gets 3 wishes. Nero gets his soul imprisoned in a gem forever. his body left catatonic and ripe for possession. THX is willing to burn a wish to find out what happened.. turns out his soul is at 13 Torment Lane, 56301 Demiplane of Kazzarak This bastard, known as the Harvester of Souls, sits on his throne and carelessly flicks Nero's soulgem into a pit of thousands of other damned souls in a pall pen of torment. Nero is out of the game, and a new character will be rolled to replace him. end of session 6 about 15 hours spent in game 2/3 to level 5